Post Mortem
by mosylu
Summary: After a classmate's mother dies, Hermione, Harry, and Ron come face-to-face with one of the most horrible truths of war. Three parts, most recently uploaded part 3 and the story is now COMPLETE
1. Hermione

  


Post Mortem

Hermione stopped on the stairs of No. 12, Grimmauld Place, and stared down at Tonks, who stood in the hallway pulling off her cloak. There was something too precise about her movements. Hermione frowned.

Ron bumped into her. "Hey, you, your foot goes on the next one down. Try it a couple of times, you'll figure it out."

She threw him a dirty look. "Something's wrong," she said, and leaned over the railing. "Tonks?" she called out. "What's wrong?"

Tonks looked up, with an effort, it seemed. "Morning," she said. Her hair was black today--not glossy, but a dull, light-sucking black, good for night work. Her skin was as dark as Kingsley's, and once again so dull it didn't reflect light. She'd been out the night before.

"Morning," Hermione said back, noting that Tonks hadn't said _good_. Hmmm. "Everything all right? You look--" _miserable. Sick. Scared._ "--funny."

Tonks didn't answer, but only looked down at her cloak as if she couldn't figure out what it was doing in her hands.

The stairs behind Hermione squeaked, once, and Tonks looked up. "Remus," she said. 

"What happened?" Lupin asked.

"She's dead."

Without another word, Lupin edged past the three of them and went to her. He asked something, too low for Hermione to hear. Tonks nodded once, jerkily, and put her face against his shoulder a moment. 

"Who's dead?" Ron asked.

With just a touch on her back, Lupin guided her into the kitchen.

"_Who's dead?"_ Ron asked more sharply.

Hermione remembered that Ron's mum had been out the night before too, and her stomach started to churn.

Harry said, "It's not your mum, it can't be, she would've--they--"

They all looked at each other. Then as one, they clattered down the rest of the stairs and charged through the door.

Tonks was heaped in a chair at the kitchen table, her face in her hands. "--and she fell down the stairs. She hit the bottom, and there was the most awful _crunch_."

"Her neck."

"Yeah."

He put a cup of tea in front of Tonks. "Drink."

She curled over it as if she were trying to thaw out her face and hands, although it was already hot out.

Ron babbled, "My mum, where's my mum? Who's dead? Who are you talking about? Who broke their neck? Is it my mum?"

"No!" Lupin broke in. "Ron. Listen. Your mum's fine."

"There where _is_ she?"

"Somewhere else. I promise you it's not your mum."

"Then who're you talking about?"

Tonks looked up. "Aunt Cissa."

"Who?" Hermione asked in confusion.

"Narcissa Malfoy," Lupin said.

"Malfoy's mum?" Harry goggled.

"I killed her," Tonks said.

They stared at her.

Lupin broke the silence with a quiet, "Sweetheart. Drink."

Tonks drank, coughed once, and gulped the rest of it in one motion. By the smell, Hermione guessed that the tea had contained enough Ogden's Old Firewhiskey to revive a car battery.

"I don't understand," she said.


	2. Harry

Tonks's narrative was jerky and scrambled, but Harry managed to piece it together. Tonks had been following her aunt on the strength of a tip from another member of the Order. She wasn't any too clear on the details of why, and what she'd been hoping to learn, or do. When Hermione asked, Tonks didn't hear. Or pretended that she hadn't. 

Narcissa Malfoy had led Tonks into a trap. "Stupid," Tonks said bitterly. "Stupid. Moody'll have a fit." She'd tried to kill Tonks, and-- "I threw a Stunning Spell at her. But she was at the top of the stairs. She fell." 

"That's all right, then," Ron said loudly. "Wasn't your fault. You didn't mean for it to happen." 

Harry was inclined to agree. Tonks had been defending herself. 

"It's not a question of intent. It's a question of--of deed. It did happen." 

"Your Aunt Bella didn't much care when she killed Sirius," Harry said in a hard, tight voice. "Bet she didn't give it a moment's thought. Bet she enjoyed it." 

Tonks looked at Harry wearily. "That's why I have to care," she said. "If I forget that it was Aunt Cissa I killed, then I'm no different." 

She looked at the cup, and they looked at her. Harry didn't know what to say. Surely she'd done what you did in war. 

Somewhere else in his head, though, a little voice was saying, _Tonks killed someone. Tonks _killed _someone. _Tonks _killed someone. _

And we know her son. 

"Have you reported?" Lupin asked. 

"No." She pushed her empty cup away. "I'll go do that." She got to her feet, moving like an old woman. 

When she passed Lupin, he reached down and took her hand. Their fingers wove together. He looked up at her. 

She shook her head, giving him a half-smile. 

"I'll be here, then," he said. "When you're done." 

She pulled her fingers from his and left the kitchen. 

"I don't understand," Harry said. He felt like a fretful child, but it was true, he _didn't_ understand, not one bit. "What do we care if one of them dies? She was the enemy. She was evil!" 

"Be that as it may, Harry," Lupin said, "she was a human being." 

Harry had to look away. 

Lupin rose and put the tea things away, but absently, as if he were thinking very hard. 

Hermione looked up. "Why didn't you go with her?" 

"She needed to do it herself," he said. "She'll come to me when she doesn't need to be strong any longer." 

He left the kitchen, and they sat around the table, staring at each other. 

It was a strange, disjointed day. Things happened around them, barely half-understood, but that was the way it was when you lived in the headquarters of the Order without being a member yourself. Ginny found them and asked what was wrong, and Hermione took her away for an intense, whispered conversation in the back garden. The two girls sat in the patchy, fitful sunshine, their heads together, their faces solemn. 

Harry and Ron sat on the other side of the garden, trying to play chess. Staring at the board, Harry thought, _This is sort of like war, isn't it? Strategy and battles and all that. _

His rook smashed a pawn to pieces, and he felt his stomach turn over. 

"Hey, long-face," Ron said. "That was my piece, not yours." 

Harry pulled his pieces off the board. "I don't want to play anymore." 

Ron stared at him, then followed suit. "All right." 

They wandered down into the kitchen and were shooed out again. Out in the garden again, they found Ginny curled on her side, her eyes closed, and Hermione with her head leaning against the garden wall, gazing at nothing. 

"She asleep?" Ron asked Hermione in a low voice. 

"No," Ginny said, not opening her eyes. 

Harry sat down by her, plucking pieces of grass and cutting them into tiny squares with his thumbnail. Ron sat on the garden wall, kicking it absently until Hermione said, "Ron, _stop _it." 

It was the sort of thing that could have led to a half-serious bickering fight on a normal day, but Ron just hopped off the wall and sprawled on his stomach in the grass. 

The sun had disappeared behind a heavy bank of clouds, and a breeze lifted the hairs on Harry's arms. He shivered, but he didn't want to go in. Looking at the others, he knew they didn't either. 

Her eyes still closed, Ginny said, "Her neck broke?" 

"That's what Tonks said," Harry answered. 

Ginny touched her own neck, tracing her fingers up her throat and around the side as if trying to understand how something so sturdy could just break. 

"But she was on the _other side_," Ron said. 

Nobody answered. 

Hermione said softly, "Wonder if he's heard yet?" 

"Who?" Harry asked, but he knew. 

"It's just Malfoy," Ron muttered. "Who cares?" 

Harry said slowly, feeling the words roll around in his mouth like rough pebbles, "Think if it was your mum." 

Ginny opened her eyes and looked at him. 

Ron said, too loudly, "Well, it's not, is it?" 

Ron's mum was in the Order. Granted, she didn't do a lot of the really daring stuff, not like Tonks or Moody. But she did her share of dangerous work. Just being in the Order was dangerous work. Harry said, "It could be." 

Ron looked at him sidelong, then closed his eyes. None of them said a word until Ron's mum--pale, strained, distracted-looking, but alive--came to call them for lunch. 


	3. Ron

_(A/N) - The two rules of war are not mine. Hoo, I wish they were. No, I borrowed them, with some alteration, from an episode of MASH. They seemed to work._

Ron sat on his trunk, watching Tonks. She was transforming herself, watching the mirror to gauge the effectiveness of her disguise. He said to her, "I don't understand." 

She finished lengthening her nose and looked at him in the mirror. "You don't understand what?" she asked. 

"You, I don't understand you." He put his chin in his hands. "A week ago, you were all broken up about your aunt. But you're still doing this." 

"I have to," she said. 

"Even when you know what'll happen eventually? What you might have to do?" 

She said to the mirror, "Yes." 

Ron said, "But--" 

"It's war," she said, still to the mirror. "You can't say, 'I don't like this bit, so I believe I'll just kip on the sidelines today.' It doesn't work like that." 

He let out his breath. 

She looked over her shoulder at him, then turned around. "Moody told me something last week," she said, leaning one shoulder against the wall. "Right after it happened." 

"Was it 'CONSTANT VIGILENCE?'" Ron asked sourly. 

"No. But that was mentioned." She grimaced. "At top volume. No. He said something else, after he calmed down. He said, in war there are two rules, and only two. Rule one is that people die." 

"And what's the second?" 

She let her head fall sideways to rest against the wall. "Rule two is . . . nobody can change Rule One." 

They both looked up as his mum came clattering down the stairs. "_There_ you are, Ron--have you got everything? Where's your owl?" 

"Dining room," Ron said. He'd shut the fuzzy nutter in there in futile hopes that it might work off some of its hysterical energy. 

"Just don't forget him. And Tonks--" His mum stopped, as if she wanted to say something but couldn't in front of Ron. "Be careful." 

Tonks smiled a little. "I'll try." 

A few hours of confusion and noise later, the Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione snuck onto the platform. As usual, they were among the last, and the engine was already belching steam like a last-minute warning. Mrs. Weasley fluttered from child to honorary child, giving hurried orders as they tried to get themselves into the compartment. 

Before climbing in, Ginny hugged their mum for longer than usual. Mum, holding her tightly, whispered something that Ron didn't hear. Ginny nodded against her mother's shoulder, then lifted her head and took a deep breath, following that with a brave smile. 

"That's my girl." 

Ginny clattered up the stairs, and Mum turned to Ron. "Keep yourself out of trouble," she ordered, standing on tiptoe to push his hair out of his eyes. "I've got enough things on my mind." 

"S'all right," he said with forced lightness. "I still remember that Howler you sent me once." 

She hugged him, holding him so tightly his ribs hurt. "Take care of yourself," she said. 

"You too," he muttered, hanging on. He'd been taller than her for years, but she still meant security to him, this plump, soft woman with a temper that would send kings scurrying. 

_What if this is it? _

What if this is the last time? Ever? 

It could be. 

She let go and gave him a little push. "Go on. You'll miss the train." 

"Mum," he said. 

She looked up. 

"I love you, Mum." 

The train whistle screeched, and he bolted to get on board. 

It started up while he was closing the door behind him, and he held still a moment, trying to get used to the motion before he went lurching down the corridor like Frankenstein's monster. It wasn't far to the prefects' compartment, but he still felt the need of a minute to himself. 

Ron started along the passageway, timing his steps to the rocking of the train, and was almost to the prefect's compartment when Malfoy came out. He'd shut the door behind him before he looked up and saw Ron. 

His lip curled slightly, but it looked more automatic than anything else. "Weasley," he said. "They let you back in this year?" 

Ron didn't say anything to that, but stared hard at him. Malfoy looked . . . tight, somehow. As if holding himself in one piece was a terrible, terrible effort. 

Their eyes met. 

In that moment, Ron forgot about a lot of things. He forgot that Malfoy was a horrible, bullying git whom he'd loathed practically since the moment they'd met. He forgot about taunts and sneers and "Weasley is Our King." He forgot five years of a seething cold war that had periodically erupted into battles. 

All he saw was pain. 

Five impulsive words leapt out of his mouth. 

Of course, he remembered everything again when Malfoy hit him. 

In the end, it took the combined efforts of Hermione, Harry, Crabbe, and Goyle to separate them. Even with Crabbe and Goyle hanging on to one arm each, Malfoy almost got loose, screaming curses so foul that gaping people came out of compartments, all up and down the car. 

When Malfoy drew his wand, the new Head Boy finally lost his patience, disarmed him, and hexed him into silence. Malfoy kept screaming, soundlessly, his eyes red and wild. 

The Head Boy turned to Hermione and Harry, who were holding Ron up more than they were holding him back. "You'd better get him to another compartment," he said, tucking Malfoy's wand into his pocket. "Weasley, you're off patrol today. So is Malfoy. Try not to run into him anymore." 

"It wasn't my choice this time," Ron said, exploring his mouth with his tongue. Luckily, all his teeth still seemed to be in their sockets. His eye throbbed madly, and one knee radiated pain all up and down his leg. 

"Whatever happened, see it doesn't again," the Head Boy decreed. "You're lucky you're not a fruit-bat right now, or worse. Granger--" 

"We're going," Hermione said coldly. 

They waded through the still-gaping crowd to the first empty compartment they found. Although Hermione had resented the Head Boy's tone, it didn't stop her from launching into a scold of her own. Ron let her run on, but concentrated on making sure he was all in one piece. He was, but only by luck, it seemed. 

"You'll have some fantastic bruises, mate," Harry told him. "That one cut on your chin might even scar. Something to show off." 

"Oh, my god, you _are_ bleeding! Oh, _Ron_," Hermione moaned, digging out her handkerchief. "What on earth did you say to him?" 

He jerked away when she tried to dab some of the blood off his chin. "I'm sorry." 

"You should be sorry," she said, scooting down the bench after him, "d'you know how much _trouble_ you're going to get in when we get there," she trapped him in the corner, against the window, and went after the blood again, "for heaven's sake you're a _pre_fect--" 

"No," Ron said. "That's what I said to him. I said I was sorry. About his mum." 

Hermione's hand paused. "You did?" The hand, and the handkerchief, dropped to her lap. "And then he hit you?" 

"Yeah." Ron looked out the window. "Don't blame him, really. Daft thing to say. Considering." 

Harry's reflection looked at him silently in the window glass. Ron looked through it, to the scenery rolling past. End-of-summer heat poured in through the window, even with the whipping wind of their speed. The sky was blue and cloudless. It was one of England's rare, perfect days. 

And Malfoy's mum wasn't seeing it. 

_Nobody can change Rule One._

Ron propped his head on his hand, feeling as if it weighed ten thousand pounds and might snap his neck without support. 

Just like Narcissa Malfoy. 

This was what Professor Lupin had meant when he'd said, "She was a human being." It was all human beings on the other side, mums and dads, brothers, sisters, and friends. Just like on their side. They had houses and families and favorite foods. They bit their nails and left wet towels on the floor and snuck the steamed broccoli to the dog. 

They might be the enemy, but they were still people. 

Narcissa Malfoy had been a Death Eater. He knew that. She'd more than likely meant to kill Tonks. He knew that too. She hadn't been much of a nice person, to be honest about it. But she'd been a person. Alive. And one person, at least, had loved her. 

Now she wasn't alive. 

And one person loved her still. 

FINIS


End file.
